JEFF SMITH
 
                    'We fought one war with Mexico to take Arizona away from them: Now
                 we ought to fight another one to make them take it back."
                    The preceding, a wry but not altogether insincere remark from a nameless
                 U.S. Cavalry officer stationed here during the Apache Indian wars, pretty tidily
                 summarized the sentiments of early American residents of the Sonoran Desert
                 we, by nativity or acculturation, have come to love so much and to guard so
                 jealously.
                    Southern Arizona of the 1850-1890 period was the undisputed leader
                 among American military personnel for the title of Armpit of the Universe. And
                 the worst, most noxious, verminous, pestilential posting of the lot was said to
                 be Fort Buchanan, midway between present-day Sonoita and Patagonia,
                 arguably some of the most desirable and pricey real estate in the real state of
                 Arizona.
                    Incidentally, a close personal friend of mine owns the very spot where Fort
                 Buchanan sat, in the late 1850s. She could afford to live anywhere she
                 preferred on Planet Earth, and this is where she chose to roost.
                    I live within rifle shot of her place and while finances preclude my emigrating
                 to the south of France or any other such destination resort, I wouldn't give up
                 my Santa Cruz County home for love or money. And periodically I am visited
                 by people who seemingly feel the same.
                    They show up at my door unannounced, seeking something cool to slake
                 their thirst, perhaps a bite to give strength to their stride, and directions north,
                 preferably out of sight of la migra, the Border Patrol boys who would send
                 them either to jail, or worse, back south of the border. I refer to illegal
                 immigrants, known by a variety of slang terms and bureaucratic contortions
                 designed to offend no one but students of plain, descriptive English and
                 Spanish.
                    Ever since that anonymous trooper damned both Arizona and the foreign
                 policy that brought it into the union, Americans and Mexicans have struggled
                 with deep-seated schizophrenia over their feelings toward this place and one
                 another.
                    Our Arizona desert is hot, dusty, dry and populated by flora and fauna that
                 scratch, claw and bite. And yet many of us want to put up a wall to keep
                 Mexicans (a term the ignorant among us apply to anyone from Nogales to
                 Tierra del Fuego who speaks Spanish) from returning to the land we fought the
                 aforementioned war to take from their ancestors.
                    And yet many of those Spanish-speaking Fuegans and others will risk their
                 lives crossing that hellish landscape, just to find a lousy job and a crummy and
                 overpriced apartment where they can start a new and hopefully more
                 prosperous life.
                    And then we ignorant Americans call them lazy Mexicans, even though they
                 are, before our very eyes and under our very roofs, working like galley slaves
                 at jobs we have grown too lazy and spoiled to stoop to, and are not, after all,
                 lazy Mexicans, but quite clearly hard-working Nicaraguans. Or Mexicans or
                 whatever.
                    And for their part, these houseguests regard this country and its people as
                 the height of arrogance and decadent materialism, and the legend of El Dorado
                 made concrete and flesh.
                    For most of the 150 years since the Gadsden Purchase gave the border its
                 present lines, both governments and nations let folks who lived along it work
                 things out for themselves, and it worked, sort of. Because it's a sparsely
                 populated region. The past generation, however, has seen a boom in
                 population and development, and a flood of illegal immigration.
                    Recent economic treaties have brought our countries into uneasy
                 partnership. Still, despite much loud bitching and weeping, expressing all sorts
                 emotions, commendable and damnable, neither government has done anything
                 much to solve the problems of illegal immigration and the causes behind it.
                    Two weeks ago, the Tucson Citizen carried a story about the Sonoran
                 town of Altar, describing how the local economy is based on the illegal
                 immigration business. This is an open violation of American law - which doesn't
                 apply there - and Mexican domestic and foreign policy - which should.
                    That same week, the press carried major news stories about banking
                 scandals involving usurious charges to Mexican and Latin-American nationals
                 who send money home to their families from their earnings as legal or illegal
                 visiting workers in the United States.
                    Other news stories reported that Hispanics have become the major minority
                 in America. As I pondered the oxymoron of major-minority and wondered
                 when a group ceases to be labeled with a hyphen, my dog started barking and
                 I went to the door.
                    Outside stood a thin young man who asked, in Spanish, if I could spare a
                 jug of water and a little something to eat. I invited him in and asked if he was
                 out for a solitary stroll or was with friends. He said his companion was too
                 frightened to come to the door, but that both of them were heading north in
                 search of work. Money back in Sinaloa was scarce, he said. I provisioned
                 them and wished them well: "Que le vaya bien."
                    This week of dispatches pretty well synthesized for me what we all - on
                 both sides of the line - are facing:

                      The Mexican government is rich enough to support a comfortable ruling
                      class, politically savvy enough to engage in global economics and callous
                      enough to let border towns like Altar profit from the life and death of the
                      desperate poor Mexican and Latin-American people who dare to hike
                      across the line into the hell that is the front porch of heaven.

                      The American government is rich enough to support anyone on the
                      planet it wishes to, and the American people are rooted in a culture that
                      wants to do good almost as much, sometimes even more. If we are
                      pushed hard enough, for long enough, Americans will do what we
                      believe is the right thing.

                      That "right thing" could be kind and compassionate or stern and cruel:
                      We are balanced on the brink and being pushed toward a
                      long-procrastinated choice.

                    The matter is approaching critical mass. Supplicants at the door, multitudes
                 in the news, merchants cashing in on human suffering are all the clues we need
                 to wake us.
                    I happen to think our government and our president should use our power,
                 wealth and personal connection with the Mexican culture, the Mexican
                 president and the Mexican economy to force the administration of Mexican
                 President Vicente Fox to engage in giving its citizens an alternative to the death
                 march across the desert.
                    Citizen columnist Jeff Smith is a local boy trying to make good. His
                 column appears on Wednesdays. Contact him by phone at (520)
                 455-5667 or by e-mail: jsmith@tucsoncitizen.com.